THE BIKEABLE CITY MASTERCLASS - EMBARQ

4 -10 May 2014, Copenhagen

Evaluation

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CONTENTS

Preface

ABOUT THE MASTERCLASS• Participants and Teachers • Program • Course material

EVALUATION AND RECOMMENDATIONS• Evaluation by Participants• Evaluation by Teachers• Documentation of training sessions by AAU• Course leader’s comments

APPENDIX (ATTACHED SEPARATELY)Annex 1: ParticipantsAnnex 2: Trainers and FacilitatorsAnnex 3: The Week’s ProgramAnnex 4: The Day’s ProgramAnnex 5: Evaluation by Participants - ratingAnnex 6: Evaluation by Participants - statements, suggestions, commentsAnnex 7: Documentation of training sessions by Aalborg University AAU

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PREFACE

The Masterclass was held at Aalborg University Copenhagen, AAU whose teachers contributed generously so as to facilitate the participants’ learning process.

This report summarizes the contents of the course and the evaluations and recommendations from participants, teachers, and the course leader. See the annexes for detailed descriptions of the evaluation and documentation of the sessions.

Overall, the Masterclass was a success. The par-ticipants’ evaluations show great satisfaction and commitment. Later documentation received from some participants shows that the lessons learned from the Masterclass are already being concretely incorporated into their daily work. EMBARQ’S current promotion of infrastructure designed to increase safety for cyclists can result in both increasing the number of cyclists and improving traffic safety.

Danish Cyclists’ FederationLotte Bech, Urban Cycle PlanningAugust 2014

In May 2014, the Cycling Embassy of Denmark hosted “The Bikeable City Masterclass” in Copen-hagen in collaboration with EMBARQ-Turkey. The participants were urban planners from EMBARQ’s offices in Turkey, Brazil, Mexico, its headquarters in Washington, and partners from Turkish munici-palities, departments, and agencies.

The object of the masterclass was to inspire and qualify EMBARQ’s staff and partners to better incorporate cycling in their projects. EMBARQ assists public authorities in sustainable urban planning and mobility in projects concerning the development of new urban areas and urban renewal. The goal was to use cycle culture from Denmark and other countries as inspiration for participants to find solutions in their own cities.

It was the Cycling Embassy of Denmark’s first “Bikeable City Masterclass.” The learnings from this pilot project will be useful for the organisa-tion of future masterclasses.

The Danish Cyclists’ Federation organised the masterclass, and Lotte Bech from Urban Cycle Planning served as course leader.

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ABOUT THE MASTERCLASS

EMBARQ specified that after the Masterclass, participants should be able to work with de-signing safe infrastructure, preventing accidents involving cyclists, collecting and monitoring cycle data to be used in bicycle accounts. They should also have gained some insight into the political process as well as to engage civil society organi-zations.

The program consisted of a mix of lectures, dis-cussions, hands-on workshops, bike tours with site visits in Copenhagen, and various meetings. Annex 3: The Week’s Program and Annex 4: The Day’s Program.

Overall themes:Developing a bicycle cultureBicycle strategy and infrastructureTraffic safety for cyclistsBicycle accountThe political processPublic involvement

COURSE MATERIALThe participants were sent a welcome letter with information about the Masterclass prior to their arrival. At the first meeting, they received a folder containing practical information about Copenhagen and the course venues, a detailed daily programme and evaluation form. They also received hand-outs specific to each session e.g. written introduction to the topics, PP presenta-tions and various relevant reports. At the end of the course, participants were awarded a diploma for successful completion of the Masterclass. All the course material as well as supplemen-tary background material was made available via Dropbox to give the participants easy access to these resources in their future work.

PARTICIPANTS AND TEACHERSThe participants included 10 staff from EMBARQ’s offices in Turkey, Brazil, Mexico, and their head-quarters in Washington D.C., and nine officials from EMBARQ-Turkey’s partners (Ministry of Transportation, Municipalities of Kocaeli, Konya, and Seferihisar, Istanbul Development Agency, Is-park bike share department, and a journalist from Milliyet Newspaper. )The EMBARQ staff partici-pated in the full 7-day program, 4-10 May. The of-ficials joined the first four days, 4-7 May. Annex 1: Participants

The teachers were experts from the Cycling Embassy of Denmark’s member organisations: City of Copenhagen, Danish Cyclists’ Federation, Gehl Architects, and COWI. In addition, Aalborg University, Consia Consultants, and the police also served as instructors.Annex 2: Trainers and Facilitators.

PROGRAMThe program was tailor made to meet EMBARQ’S requirement. The course leader and staff from EMBARQ’s headquarters and their Turkey office coordinated the program. The purpose was to:• Upgrade EMBARQ’s staff and partners in cycle planning • Inspire participants through best-practice examples and workshops on how to translate Danish solutions to the local context of the participants

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EVALUATION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

“Overall, I cannot describe enough the importance of actually witnessing the integration of bicycles in urban transport … It was fun riding the bike, but also witnessing the well-designed network of bicycle infra-structure was an invaluable experience. The works like a bridge for only cyclists and pedestrians for enabling a free flow of traffic were beneficial for us.” - Salih Erdemci, Ministry of Transportation, Turkey

The wide range of activities required to strengthen a bicycle culture and create a liveable city also served as an eye opener. Cüneyt Cetintas from the Transportation Department of Kocaeli Metropolitan Municipality in Turkey realized it is not enough to build cycle tracks:“We had constructed about 32 km of bike lanes of good quality but only a few cyclists were using them. The Masterclass helped me to understand the nature of the bike world. I understood that constructing a very good bike network is not enough to make people bike. Biking has to be incorporated into daily life as a culture. As Gehl Architects said, it is not just hardware or software. Bike culture is both of them. Besides making master plans, we have to think about what is going on in the city. How does the city move? How are people living their lives, and what actually do they need to get a liveable city?”

According to the feedback, the Masterclass has had concrete results. During the session on bi-cycle accounts, the Turkish group worked on a “Safe Cycling Design Manual” for Istanbul, a real project. Inspired by Copenhagen’s Bicycle Ac-count, they have subsequently developed the interview guide for a survey directed at NGOs and cyclists. The purpose is to collect information about their needs, opinions, and expectations. Project Manager Cigdem Corek from EMBARQ-Turkey states: “I can say that the masterclass helped to form not only the survey sheet for interviews but also the framework of the whole process.”

Overall, the Masterclass was a success. According to the very positive evaluations, the participants found it valuable in their work. EMBARQ-Turkey mentioned their participation in “The Bikeable City Masterclass” on their TheCityFix website and in their newsletter, with links to YouTube video interviews with participants and teachers in Copenhagen as well as photos on Flickr.

The Masterclass followed the program agreed with EMBARQ, as well as using the expert teachers we selected.

The participants have provided valuable feed-back for future masterclasses. The teachers have evaluated their own sessions, making suggestions for future courses. A group of MA students from AAU provided written, photo, and video docu-mentation.

EVALUATION BY PARTICIPANTSThe participants evaluated the quality of the masterclass overall as well as the individual ses-sions and site visits. We value their feedback.

According to the evaluations, experiencing how Danish cities integrats cycling in the general traffic system was of key importance. The par-ticipants biked to “work” themselves every day and experienced rush hour on the cycle tracks of Queen Louise Bridge, one of the busiest cycle tracks in Copenhagen:

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Percentage of participants who on a scale of 1-5 rated “1: “Very useful” or “2: Useful:” • How useful will the content of the course be for your job? – 92%• How informative and useful are the materials used in the course? – 100%On a scale of 1-3 (too short – OK – too long) 85% of the participants have evaluated the dura-tion of the course as “OK”. (15% rated it as too long)

The participants were particularly enthusiastic about the workshops and recommend that we alot more time to workshops and time for ex-perts to give feedback on case studies. Participants evaluate the course material as very valuable. Sev-eral participants would have liked more time to get to know Copenhagen e.g. a half day off during the week. A few participants found the Master-class too long and find that five days would suf-fice while 85% found the seven days appropriate. Marta Obelheiro from EMBARQ-Brazil states: “The duration of the course was great! With less time it would be impossible to cover so many topics and to have the great discussions we had.”

Other recommendations: • More time to summarize recommendations for case studies• Include the integration of cycling and public transport in the program for future Master classes • English version of the interview guide for the Bicycle Account and more details about the methodology • More time to discuss the work of the police with school children• Introduction to cycling in Copenhagen (rules etc. possibly as a pamphlet for cycle tourists)• Smaller groups for site visits and more time for photo documentation

Likewise, EMBARQ-Washington got input during the Masterclass about increasing safety for cyclists, so they could finalize their design guide “Cities Safer by Design.” Ben Welle, EMBARQ Senior Associate, explains: “The guide as a result of the Masterclass has improved and will help cities in countries where EMBARQ works to consider safety more in their design of bicycle lanes. In addition, the Masterclass was helpful to EMBARQ in how it considers bicycle infrastructure in the construction of bus corridors in Mexico and Brazil, as well as a follow up work to a previous EMBARQ report and project to improve bi-cycling facilities within Brazil’s favela communities.”

One weakness in the program, however, was its being too compact. Seven days of intense training is tiring, and evaluations show that participants did not profit as much from the final two days.

General feedback on the Masterclass68% of the participants completed the general evaluation of the Masterclass. There was a very high level of satisfaction with the course manage-ment, the course venue and the course material.Percentage of participants who on a scale of 1-5 rated “1. Very good” or “2. Good:” • The course management – 100%• The course venue – 92%• The course logistics and information – 92%• The overall quality of your learning in the course – 92%• Please rate your own participation in the course – how active were you? – 54% (46%: “3. OK”)

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According to the evaluations, the site visits were very relevant for their job, and the participants made useful observations and got ideas to bring home. On average, 81 % rated questions 1-3 “1: Very good” or “2: Good” on a scale of 1-5. On a scale of 1-3 (too short – OK – too long) 79% of the participants have evaluated the duration of the course as “OK”.

Some participants were excited about the site visits on bike and to experience how cyclists use the infrastructure while the bike tours were tiring for others. The guide’s explanations were deemed very valuable but at times hard to hear in a large group.

The participants found the meeting with Copen-hagen’s Mayor of the Technical and Environmental Administration to discuss the political process very inspiring, while the meeting with Gehl Ar-chitects, who work with cities around the world, including Istanbul, was particularly instructive.

Annex 5: Evaluation by Participants – ratingsAnnex 6: Evaluation by Participants – statements, suggestions, comments

Evaluation of sessions and workshops81% of the participants completed the evaluation of the individual sessions and workshops, rating: 1. The presentation and discussion2. The quality of your learning 3. The training material 4. The relevance to your work 5. The duration of the activity

The evaluations of the individual sessions and workshops vary, but overall, participants deem them as very relevant to their work. On average, 75 % of the participants rated questions 1-4 as “1: Very good” or “2: Good” on a scale of 1-5. On a scale of 1-3 (too short – OK – too long) 72% of the participants have evaluated the dura-tion of the course as “OK”.

Several participants asked for more feedback and ideas about local case studies from the experts. The session on design of intersections serves as a good example. Here, the group worked on a spe-cific case discussing both the participants’ ideas and the actual solution.

Opinion about the session on Bicycle Accounts was divided. This was due to the relevance of the topic for the participants’ individual job. Half the participants thought there was too little time for the workshop and for discussion of the process and interview questions.

Evaluation of site visits 81% of the participants completed the evaluation of the site visits, rating: 1. The on-site presentation2. The observations and the ideas you got to take home3. The relevance to your work4. The duration of the activity

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The report demonstrates that the participants’ discussions focused on applying their new-found knowledge to their local problems which was one of the goals of the Masterclass.

For example, participants discussed solutions for increasing traffic safety in their intersections based on the session on designing bicycle-friendly infrastructure. As Nicolae Dudutas from EM-BARQ-Washington said: “What I appreciated the most about the Master-class was the opportunity to meet and work with experts in cycle infrastructure design. We were able to address very important issues in great de-tail: how to handle conflicts involving left-turning cyclists at intersections for example, or how to negotiate conflicts between buses, cyclists, and passengers at bus stops.”

Annex 7: Documentation of training sessions by Aalborg University AAU

COURSE LEADER’S COMMENTSIt was a pleasure to serve as course leader for the EMBARQ group. EMBARQ’s work to support the sustainable development in Brazil, Mexico, Turkey, India, and China is very important. There is great potential in that EMBARQ staff now after the Masterclass is prepared to incorporate cycling into their urban planning projects. As participants express, it can have a very large impaced. We are particularly pleased that the participants rated the “quality of learning” as high since the program focused on active learning. The course organiser and course leader will use the evaluations to make improvements for future Masterclasses.

EVALUATION BY TEACHERSAccording to the teachers, the participants were very dedicated and eager to discuss the topics of the workshops. The teachers comment that the program was a bit too tight. Next time, we should possibly allot more time for participants to ex-plore Copenhagen by themselves or perhaps with an accompanying member of staff. This could be with the goal of completing an assignment.

Expectations regarding the use of local cases should be balanced better. The participants ex-pected a thorough feedback on the material they had sent in advance. More specific requirements for materials sent in advance and for agreed deadlines are recommended.

One teacher suggests including a run-through of the transport and city development in Copen-hagen with examples of how Denmark has met the challenges associated with the promotion of cycling.

DOCUMENTATION OF TRAINING SESSIONS BY AAUDocumentation provided by the students at AAU describes in positive terms the professional content of the presentations and the activities and exercises that are used in discussions and workshops. Here you get an idea of the questions raised and the participants’ professional benefit. A video about the Masterclass is available on the Cycling Embassy of Denmark’s website.